MACON, Ga. — Orcs and Dragons and Elves and Dwarves, oh my! These and many more are characters you can play as or deat when you play Dungeons and Dragons. One Central Georgia business wants to bring the fun to you.
Jamie Helms has a knack for bringing people together.
In 2020, he would livestream himself reading chapters of Harry Potter. At the same time, he and some friends were bored and looking for something fun to do.
"We had a very isolated group of people who were already around each other at the time so we started a game at one of the bars where it was just the same six people. We were being very safe and sanitized everything and none of them had ever played before," Helms said.
They began playing a popular Dungeons and Dragons campaign called The Curse of Strahd. The spirit of that time still lingers in Helms' new adventure.
AnyTable Gaming is a mobile tabletop games business that brings gaming experiences anywhere and to any table.
As the founder, Helms is a bartender by day and a Dungeon or Game Master by night.
Helms has been playing games for over a decade and wants to give people a fun and inviting place to roll the dice and see where imagination can take them.
He says he knew there was a community in the area, but it was hard to find a consistent and accessible series of games to play.
"I started doing little pop-up events here and there. Doing team building events, doing birthday parties, because everybody wants to play a tabletop game but nobody knows where to start," Helms said.
AnyTable Gaming comes to you and provides you with everything you need to play including dice, character sheets, maps, figures and more. It's not just Dungeons and Dragons available to play but several other tabletop role-playing games.
"You can shoot us a message and say 'Hey, I've never played before' or 'I've been playing for 20 years' whatever your range of experience is. You just say 'I want to play' and we do the rest," Helms said.
He says it's awesome to watch players become someone new while role-playing.
"Usually it's when you get to see an adult take the accountant hat or the lawyer hat off and pick up a sword and shield in their mind and they're slaying monsters and going on adventures. You get to see somebody become a kid again," Helms said.
He says he knows gaming can be intimidating for some people, but he has never found a table that was not open and welcoming to everyone of any age.
Helms says if you have an imagination, you can play.
Over time, as a dungeon master, or narrator of these games he has seen people grow as humans, overcome real-life challenges and work through tough problems over a game.
He says it can make regular life a little more exciting.
"When you can sit down and maybe do a funny voice or not do a funny voice and roll a die and this guy tells you that you just tackled a dragon off of a building, it makes the 9 to 5 not that bad you know," he said.
You can reach out to AnyTable Gaming on their Facebook, Instagram or through email.